Where'd You Go?
by Psychosomatic Insomniac
Summary: What they had was beautiful, unexpected, and tragic in a way that brought her to tears every time. Because he ruined it. He destroyed her. And still, she couldn't forget him. Wouldn't regret him. Reno x Yuffie x Vincent. AU


_I know I've been gone a long time and I don't really have any excuses for that, or at least, not any good ones. This was actually a sketch for some characters of mine but I changed the names and some descriptions around to make it work as fanfiction._

_I've got a bit of a new obsession and I can't believe I didn't see it sooner._

_Reno and Yuffie. Yuffie and Reno. _

_T o g e t h e r._

_It's beautiful, the way their personalities play off each other, the way the arguments turn so heated and passionate..  
><em>

_Anyway! Maybe I'll get to that, later. If this thing gets any reviews, that is... _

* * *

><p>"I know where you went," Her voice is trembling through the phone, a quiet whisper on the wind. And he doesn't answer her right away, just throws an arm over his eyes in a half-hearted attempt to be annoyed. It doesn't work, it never works, so he plays along and surrenders himself to her siren-song.<p>

"And where is that, Yuffie?" He asks, bringing himself to at least make his question _sound_ like a question.

She giggles on the other end and responds with the usual, "Are you drunk?"

And he rolls onto his side and stares at the bottle of vodka, half empty and beckoning, propped up against the open window. He gives her the usual "No…", but his tongue betrays him midsentence and murmurs a hushed, ineloquent, "Not yet, anyway."

"Reno," She says, near condescending, "We'll talk about this later."

"Well, why not now?" He reaches for the bottle but his arms aren't as long as he thought and the distance isn't nearly as close as he wants. His fingertips brush the rim – so, _so _close – and only manage to knock the thing over. "Damn…I miss you."

Yuffie doesn't know what to say to this because she knows it isn't really the truth, only a very thin, very twisted version of it. So she says nothing and he expects nothing in return. She's got _Vincent_, now, and everyone in the bloody world loves _Vincent,_ now.

_Stupid vampire…_ The second he got on the plane was the second she threw herself right back to _him_. Worst decision he's ever made but not the worst he'll ever make.

"You could always visit, you know," She says in a small voice, sounding nothing like the woman she's become, but more of the girl she's trying to leave behind.

"Hah." It's a word, not a laugh.

"Don't." It's an order, not a plea.

"Why not?"

They never do get back to the subject of where he went because she honestly doesn't know and he honestly hopes she never finds out, never goes looking. There's a simple, unspoken truth between them, as true as it'll ever be; _Forget the where, it's nothing. I'll always be around, whether you want me or not._

Last words, quiet and casual. Like they'd meet again, someday. Like they'd be happy, someday.

"Because it makes me feel like shit again. And I don't wanna feel like shit, Reno."

"You know I wanted to be the one to put the ring on your finger. You know that, right?"

She doesn't answer his question, finds herself looking out the window at the lamplight, sparkling across the snow. The ghost of her reflection dances on the glass and she watches a crystalline tear cascade down her cheek, into the sink. Yeah. She knows.

"Do you think of me?"

"Always, give or take."

She lets her tears fall, resolved not to care, not to even _think_ to care. She pushes herself up and onto the corner of the counter, swings her legs back and forth in an attempt to distract her brain from going _there_, a time when he was pushing her back into this very counter.

"Well, what's that supposed to mean?"

"It means exactly what I said."

"Hah."

"Why do you get to do that?"

"Because my skin makes you cry."

"Yuf, that's not even funny," The arm's over his eyes again, trying (and failing miserably) to shut out any and all images of her face, her eyes, her hips, all dancing in front of him.

"Is to me," She says as she hops down off the counter and jams her feet into her boots. They're not practical for what she wants to do tonight, but it doesn't matter. She'll be late if she doesn't hurry. But she's never been practical, or punctual, for another matter, and that's just that, it's the way things are.

"You goin' somewhere?"

She's about to say something sickeningly sweet and moderately suggestive, when she realizes that the voice is in front of her and entirely different from the one on the phone. _Way _too different. Tired in a way that comes with age, not sleep deprivation. Low in a way that comes with being ill and not caught in desire. And gruff in a way that comes with being Lord Kisaragi, a father, and a smoker – but only on the weekends.

"Yeah, Dad," She cradles the phone into her shoulder and holds a leg up in the air to tie a dangling shoelace.

"Not like that, you're not," Godo says, eyeing her outfit in one long sweep, taking in the particularly large expanse of skin between the end of her shorts and the start of her boots.

"Just like this, I am."

"Yuffie." Both men say, one of them her father, the other, her…lover? Maybe that's not the right word for it. The right word isn't a single one at all. He's the lover that never was, never could be.

"What?" She isn't sure which one she's answering to but her father doesn't so much reply as wave her off and away, pinching the bridge of his nose as though she causes him physical pain.

"Thanks, Daddy." She kisses her father's cheek and runs out the back door, taking her acoustic, Elliot, with her.

"Well what was that about? Didn't I tell you not to argue with him?"

"Yes, and didn't I tell you you're not the boss of me?"

She laughs at Reno's silence and imagines he's pinching the bridge of his own nose, now. _Why do I always cause people pain?_

Her feet don't even crunch in the snow, _stupid snow_. She's been wishing for rain all week and it looks like it'll be on the way soon. The clouds are huddled close and conspiring, the trees are leaning gnarled branches, hands in the half-light, against each other for a sense of shelter. _And I've got none._

None, nothing and no one but his voice and her guitar.

"I bet it's beautiful," He whispers as she leans up to taste the snowflakes. She's never thought of them as frozen rain, but more as frozen stars. The image in and of itself is more ethereal, more haunting, that way. Rain doesn't sparkle. Stars do. And so does snow.

Yuffie lets herself twirl around in it a bit, lets herself get lost in the way the wind takes her breath away, lets it swirl back up to the Milky Way.

She stops suddenly, abruptly, remembering why she went outside in the first place. She's on a mission, now.

"I said I'm sorry, you know." He says after a minute or two, the sound of her footfalls making her feel farther away, less grounded to him. And it's almost the truth, not some twisted version of it.

"Yeah, I know. Be sorry. Just don't be sorry for me. I don't want it anymore," There are a lot of implications in _it_ and she doesn't care what he makes of them, doesn't want to know.

"I meant it when I said I want all of you, damned or not."

"And I meant it when I said get lost, Reno." She hangs up and tosses her phone into the water, looks away so she won't cry when he calls back. And call back he does, the ringtone's too loud in her winter-scape, a quiet path by the river. It ripples for a while, peace disturbed by only her. And Yuffie watches the lights glimmer off the surface, almost wishes she knew how to swim. Almost wishes she could peel off her shorts, her shoes, dive right under and never answer to anyone again.

She does the smart thing and scrambles up her favorite rock, a massive thing with swirling black veins. _I wonder what mine look like…_she shakes her head to dismiss the thought and stretches out her arms under a blank slate of sky. Starts playing something deep, haunting. It's nothing new, it has no lyrics to sing but she's always known it, always been moved to tears by the opening alone.

And now it's freezing her insides, making her flash back to all the things she had with _him._ The way he leaned in real close when he was listening, cocking his head to the side so his goggles started falling off. The way he kissed her at Christmas time, all soft and smooth and ridiculously _not_-Reno.

Her fingers are clumsy, forgetful. But her memory's coordinating to conspire against her. _"I want all of you..."_

The tears never really stop, they just run down her face in gentle rivulets the way the rain did after Sephiroth flew back up into the clouds.

Elliot nearly slips from her hands, all numb and shaky. She grips the neck a little harder, won't let herself let it go because it's the last thing tying her to the here, the now.

"Why'd you stop?"

Vincent's arms are encircling her shoulders and his lips are murmuring apologies she doesn't really hear. It doesn't matter. It never matters. She leans into the gesture the way a cat leans into a caress. She knew he'd show up at some point, this is _their_ spot, _their_ hour. It doesn't matter where he came from, or even when he got here, it just matters that he's with her, now. She wants to say, "Because I'm bleeding," but it wouldn't sound right out in the open like this, it'd upset the trees. It'd ripple the river, shatter the illusion of frosted glass. It wouldn't sound right to herself, either. Because it'd only be a half-truth.

So he doesn't ask again, knows she doesn't want to go into specifics, but says instead, "I brought you hot chocolate," as an afterthought, softly, gently, and it's enough to make her start crying all over again. _Stupid boy._ Her fingers are bleeding. Her eyes are heavy. It's not the physical pain that hurts, it never is, never really has been. She can take that.

It's the little whispers of heartbreak that send her spiraling down into darkness. It's the little wisps of him that make her fall apart.

* * *

><p><em>So, what do you guys think?<em>

_Should I keep going? Should I slow down? Should I drag this thing over to the Recycle Bin?_

_*shrug* Iunno, I've never been good at reading minds. Thoughts? Sure. Minds? No._

_Guess you'll just have to tell me in an amazingly amazing, sparkly review. That'd make my day. Or night.. _


End file.
